Bio

21st Century Skills author Charles Fadel states that we are living in a V.U.C.A. world, meaning our world is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. To that end as a dedicated and innovative teacher I care deeply about designing engaging and challenging project-based learning units for my students, in order to help them build the skills they will need to succeed in this new paradigm.

As a firm believer in constructivist learning, the foundation of my PBL units are always built on questions raised and crafted by my students themselves. In this way voice and choice drives the entire experience and my students truly own their work. Using the "Question Formulation Technique" espoused by the Right Question Institute I teach my students how to craft "beautiful questions" about the world around them, and use divergent and convergent thinking to dig far deeper into their interests than they would in a more "traditional" curriculum.

As a PBL Coach I also work closely with fellow faculty members to help them understand the PBL design process, and the QFT to bring these same experiences to their students.

I am a proven curriculum designer who bridges constructivist pedagogy with real-world application rooted in sustainability, social justice and environmental ethics through an interdisciplinary approach. I leverage collaboration and professional development to help develop my students into impactful global citizens.

I firmly believe that Cultural Competency is an imperative skill that my students must grasp in order to live in our connected 21st century world and that a more culturally competent population will lead to a better world. To this end, I have dedicated myself to this task by facilitating a focus group at Fessenden called "AWARE". AWARE's mission is to build vocabulary, empathy and understanding for issue related to identity. I have also attended POCC and the National Diversity Practitioners Institute.